If we don’t treat the root cause of the problem, we will just end up getting a new symptom.

What really matters and allows healing?

Relationships: Is the primary relationship you are engaged in healthy and supportive, or stressful and unhappy? Are there other important relationships in your life that are causing stress?

Occupation: Do you enjoy what you do for a living, or for your principal daily activity? Do you hate your job? Do you dread going to work or even getting out of bed?

Creative Expression: Do you regularly engage in activities that allow you to express yourself creatively. Do you have activities in your life that give you a sense of fulfillment and value?

Spiritual Connection: “We cultivate love when we allow our most vulnerable and powerful selves to be deeply seen and known, and when we honor the spiritual connection that grows from that offering with trust, respect, kindness and affection.” — Brene Brown

Sexual Relationship: How is your sex life? Do you enjoy your sexual experiences? Do they leave you relaxed and fulfilled, or tense and frustrated?

Financial: Are you comfortable in your relationship to money? Do you have a scarcity mentality? Do you fear that you will have to go without, or even go hungry ever?

Healthy Environment: Do you live in an environment that is clean, and promotes good health? Are comfortable being in your living space? Do you have adequate personal space?

Mental State: Do you look for the positive, or for the negative aspect of things? Do you find yourself continually thinking about, or even re-living past traumatic or painful life experiences?

Physical Health Practices: (Nutrition, exercise, sleep, etc.) Are you living a healthy life style? Are you doing all the traditional things we are told to do to keep our bodies healthy?

Abuse Issues: (Childhood, teenage, adult, current) This is a big one. Do you have any traumatic experiences that need to be addressed and healed?

Your Intuition

Caring for the body is not the most important component of being healthy. The most important part of being healthy is caring for the mind, caring for the heart (emotions), caring for the soul, and tapping into your inner guidance, that divine spark inside that always knows what is right for you. Your intuition. It speaks to you in whispers, in your mind and heart. It is the biggest healer you can ever tap into.

When you don’t feel safe, you tend to let go of our intuition and go for logic and certainty. It makes you feel like you have some control over the world. But, control is just an illusion.

Service, Love, Gratitude, and Pleasure are the glue that hold every aspect of your physical health together.

The brain communicates with all the cells in the body. If you have a negative thought, belief, or feeling in the brain, your brain registers this as a threat. Anything that feels negative to the body triggers an amygdala response of “threat”, and elicits a fight or flight condition. The adrenal glands start producing stress hormones.

Ideally, when there is no perceived threat, the nervous system is supposed to relax and the stress mechanism is supposed to turn off. That is when the healing hormones are produced (oxytocin, dopamine, endorphins.) This only happens when the nervous system is relaxed.

When the nervous system is relaxed, all these natural self repair mechanism can come into play. There are lots of simple pleasurable activities that turn on relaxation responses:

• meditation   • creative expression   • massage   • yoga   • tai chi    • fun social activities         • work that you love  • sex   • laughter   • exercise    • playing with animals    • hobbies

What does your body need in order to heal?

•  What might be out of balance in your body, in your life? What does your body need in order to heal itself?
• Are you brave enough to take action on the truth of what your body already knows through your own inner wisdom, your intuition?
• Your body is your business, your own responsibility. Your mind has tremendous power to communicate with your body, such that your body can heal itself.
• When you numb yourself to guard against pain, fear, or inadequacy, you also numb out joy and love.

Allow yourself to be vulnerable, to feel, in order to allow your body to heal itself.

Lissa Rankin: https://www.youtube.com/embed/7tu9nJmr4Xs
 Brene Brown: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UoMXF73j0c#t=13